Privacy policy
This policy covers firstepapp.com — this website and the enquiries submitted through it. The Firstep application at app.firstepapp.com, which handles information about children enrolled at schools using our software, operates under a separate privacy policy and a data processing agreement signed with each school.
Who we are
Firstep is operated by Bryan St. Clair, an independent software developer based in California, United States. For any privacy question, write to hello@firstepapp.com.
What we collect
Information you give us
When you submit the early-access form, we collect what you type into it:
- Your name and email address
- The name of your school or center
- Your role and approximate enrollment, if you choose to provide them
- Anything you write in the message field
Alongside your submission we record the IP address it came from, your browser's user-agent string, and the time. That combination is used to catch automated abuse of the form and to enforce a submission rate limit — not to build a profile of you.
Information collected automatically
This site uses Google Analytics 4 to understand which pages people find useful. It sets cookies in your browser and reports aggregate usage to us — pages viewed, approximate location by region, device type, and how you arrived. IP anonymization is enabled. We do not use analytics to identify individual visitors, and we do not run advertising or retargeting on this site.
Our web server also keeps standard access logs, and a session cookie is set to make forms work securely (it carries no personal information about you).
What we do not collect here
This website does not collect information about children, and it never asks for payment card or bank account details. Children's data lives only inside the application, under the separate policy described above.
Why we use it
- To reply to you. The details you submit are used to contact you about Firstep and to answer your questions.
- To run and improve this website. Aggregate analytics tell us which pages are worth expanding.
- To keep the site working. Rate limiting, spam filtering, and security logging.
We do not sell your information, rent it, share it with data brokers, or add you to a marketing list you did not ask for. If you enquire and decide Firstep is not for you, that is the end of it.
Who we share it with
We share information only with the service providers that make this site run:
- Our hosting provider, which operates the server this site runs on.
- Google Analytics, for the aggregate usage measurement described above.
- Our email provider, which delivers the notification of your enquiry to us.
We may also disclose information where the law requires it, or where it is necessary to protect our rights or someone's safety.
How long we keep it
- Enquiries: kept while we are in contact and for up to two years afterwards, then deleted.
- Server and security logs: kept for up to 12 months.
- Analytics data: retained according to Google Analytics' own retention settings.
Ask us to delete your enquiry sooner and we will.
Your choices
You can ask us to:
- Tell you what information we hold about you
- Correct anything that is wrong
- Delete your enquiry and the record of it
- Stop contacting you
Email hello@firstepapp.com and we will act on it. If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act gives you these rights formally, including the right not to be treated differently for exercising them. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under that Act.
You can block analytics cookies in your browser settings or with Google's opt-out browser add-on. The site works fine without them.
Security
This site is served over HTTPS, form submissions are protected against cross-site request forgery, and enquiry data is stored on a server we control with restricted access. No system is perfect, but we do not collect more here than we need — which is the most reliable protection available.
Children
This website is intended for childcare professionals, not children, and we do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 13 through it. If you believe a child has submitted information here, contact us and we will delete it.
Changes
If this policy changes materially we will update the date at the top and, where the change affects people who have contacted us, tell them directly.
Questions about how Firstep would handle your school's data specifically? That is covered by a separate agreement — ask us and we will walk you through it.